


of haunted houses and graveyards

by Wordsintothevoid



Series: of longing and fulfillment [2]
Category: Gran Hotel (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Mutual Pining, Pining, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:55:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26691793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wordsintothevoid/pseuds/Wordsintothevoid
Summary: Isabel asks Alicia to set Julio free to love someone else. She can't.Cecilia tries to trap Julio in her schemes and force him to love her. Julio's heart has already been claimed.
Relationships: Julio Olmedo/Alicia Alarcón
Series: of longing and fulfillment [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1942336
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21





	1. haunted houses

**Author's Note:**

> this is two moments from around the same time in canon so here they are together!

Alicia has been lost in thought lately, worrying about Javier’s recent accident. Her brother has been shot and their mother is entirely blasé about the entire incident. But when Isabel, her maid, knocked over the container of hairpins, matched silver earrings with a gold necklace, and brought out an evening dress instead of a day dress, Alicia has to ask.

“Isabel, are you well? You seem sad.”

Isabel fidgets, making excuses like a good maid should, and Alicia feels a pang that it’s been trained into the staff they’re not allowed to have emotions. But she presses on.

“It’s the waiter I told you about, Julio.”

Alicia fights for every ounce of self-control she possesses to maintain her neutral expression.

Isabel continues, fortunately oblivious. “He’s my best friend and he’s been so kind to me.”

Alicia thinks of the times she’s seen Julio helping a new staff member find the silverware, covering for someone else’s mistakes, teaching Isabel to read, carrying himself with the inner confidence that makes people mistake him for a guest with a title and deep pockets. Really, Alicia thinks with a tinge of bitterness, it would be stunning if no one else were interested in Julio.

“I know he likes me and I like him.”

Alicia’s hands shake while she clasps her earrings. “Then all is well.”

Isabel looks doubtful. “But he doesn’t want to take the next step because of the other woman.”

“Do you know who this other woman is?” Alicia prays her voice is steady.

Isabel shakes her head, the picture of innocence. “No, but I think she must be married or promised and it’s not fair to leave him dangling like that. Don’t you agree?”

“Of course.”

“I worry about Julio more than myself. He’ll never be happy like this.”

Diego enters and calls her  _ querida _ , kisses her cheek, and Alicia has never been grateful to leave a conversation. She walks down the hallway, arm in arm with Diego, Isabel’s words ringing through her head. 

Sometimes she’s more a haunted house than a woman, a ruin full of echos of Julio’s voice, his breath ruffling the tattered curtains, his gentle hands pressed against her rotted bones. Her family all have hammers and her foundation crumbles more each day. 

She’s the ghost in her own body, her voice evaporating every time Diego touches her like a possession. Diego killed Alicia Alárcon, buried her under layers of firm glares and her own longing, and all that’s left is Señora Murquía.

If Isabel is the one who makes Julio happy, then he deserves to be happy.

Alicia can never forget his face when he learned about Cristina, the way he seemed to finally break. Her confident, untouchable Julio who can mingle with the snobbiest elite and brawl in a tavern never once wavered until he had to carry his sister’s body with all the indifference a dead maid deserves. Alicia knows that kind of pain doesn’t heal entirely; Julio will quietly mourn for his sister until the end of his days. 

But the dead shouldn’t haunt the living. Julio should not be allowed to love a ghost. 

That includes Alicia.

Her selfishness surprises her, she, who had always considered herself a kind person. Here she is, tormenting the best man she’s ever known with stolen kisses and what-ifs because she can’t bring herself to set him free. But she knows what it would do to her, if she ever tried.

Alicia pictures it, telling Julio it was all a mistake, that she never felt the same way, that she’s arranged a new job for him, somewhere far away so he can learn to love someone who isn’t her. He’d know she was lying (he always sees her for who she really is). He’d try to argue or refuse to go. But what could he do? She still carries the full weight of the Alárcon name and if she wants a waiter fired, then no one will refuse her.

He’d be forced to leave. She’d never see him again. There would be no hiding her agony from her family, from the guests, from anyone.

Julio Olmedo has become her home and she wants his voice echoing down the halls, his breath against her skin, his smile lighting up the room for as long as she lives. She can never let him go. If they’re doomed to haunt each other, then Alicia will be a ruin as long it means his ghost will never leave her.

“What are you thinking about,  _ querida _ ?” Diego asks, hand tight on her upper arm.

She smiles, the grimace of a dead woman. “Nothing.”


	2. graveyards

Cecilia pulls him down the stairs late at night and Julio wonders how he ever could have loved this woman. She’s manipulative and so cold-blooded, she’d impress Doña Teresa and Diego. Her hand in his makes his skin crawl and again, for the thousandth time, he regrets the tiny “C” inked on his skin.

They come to the hotel lobby. The faint wisp of cigarette smoke lingers in the air and he stiffens. He _knows_ that smell, that particular brand of tobacco. It’s one of his cigarettes; he rolls them himself and the only person who would have one of his cigarettes… 

Alicia.

He pastes on a smile when Cecilia turns to him and they enter the room full of lockboxes and switch Alfredo and Sofía’s money into Cecilia’s account. She laughs like she has the world for the taking, like she’s amazing at how stupid everyone else is, and Julio just grits his teeth.

Cecilia leads the way out, pausing in the doorway to reel him in for a kiss. He responds, hand automatically going to her waist, hating every second of it. She’s possessive, demanding while Alicia is eager, sometimes hesitant. When she breaks away, he touches his mouth, feeling tainted.

She traipes up the stairs while he follows but Julio catches movement in the corner of his eye, fear tensing his muscles. He says nothing, _hoping_ Cecilia didn’t see, wondering what Alicia must be thinking to see him stealing from her family.

But Cecilia notices. She whirls back down the stairs before he can stop her, heedless of the need for silence. She grabs a cane. He’s not fast enough.

With a terrible sound, Alicia is limp on the floor. Julio yanks the cane out of Cecilia’s hands before she can strike again, blood pounding, rage clouding his vision.

“She saw us leaving the vault,” Cecilia grits out.

His panic leaves him reeling but he manages to pull together his facade. “What? You think she was waiting to stop us from stealing?” He scoffs. “She won’t tell anyone. Probably won’t remember anything when she wakes up.”

Cecilia softens, wanting to believe him. She pulls him close, her smile already turning wicked. “I feel sorry for the little dimwit. Let’s go upstairs and celebrate.”

He smiles, a grotesque expression, like something cut from a dead man.

It takes all of his self-control to walk upstairs with Cecilia and his thoughts are with Alicia, anxiety for her safety pulsing through his veins. His hands ache to hold her, ensure she’s well, beg her forgiveness. _Lo mucho siento, Alicia. Eres mi amor de mi vida, mi corazón._

So he lies sweetly to Cecilia, swaying with her, feeling seventeen again in the worst way, when he was angry with the whole world and desperate for a woman’s touch to validate all his pain. He puts on the record, rage bubbling up as Cecilia describes how casually she took a life and betrayed him when he had thought it was the two of them against the world. This seems to be all he does now: digging graves for all his ruined dreams.

When he gathers Ayala and Hernandez together and plays them the record, Cecilia rages, her voice poisonous, but even the sting of her palm against his cheek before they drag her away can’t dim his quiet joy as he locks eyes with Alicia. _Todo lo que hago es por ti, Alicia._

He takes Alicia to the cliffside, all golden sunlight and an ocean so blue it doesn’t seem real, and lays all his cards before her, asks for her forgiveness for his inability to protect her. He gets down on one knee, waiting for her blow, but they both know she would never hit him. She laughs and cups his cheek with her soft hand and he can’t help leaning into her touch, the day so sun-warm, her eyes so bright.

For once, Julio doesn’t think of the graveyard in his heart, where Cristina whispers her need for justice. There, he keeps his hopes for a future with Alicia in a mausoleum, wrapped in a shroud embroidered with the lace of her dresses, smelling of the tobacco they share.

For once, he lets himself enjoy being here in this moment, far away from Cecilia and the hotel’s problems. He’s here on a cliffside with _la mujer de su vida_ , her dress blowing in the wind, her face so bright she could replace the sun and he would never notice the difference.

For once, Julio Olmedo is happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i thought it was ridiculous in canon how alicia was in real danger and julio was just like "lol sorry about that babe" so here's all his pining and worry that he had to hide.
> 
> Translations:  
> I'm so sorry, Alicia. You are the love of my life, my heart.
> 
> Everything I do, I do for you, Alicia.
> 
> The woman of his life.


End file.
